What the pros know

Tom Callahan, author of last season's excellent Johnny U, returns with The GM: The Inside Story of a Dream Job and the Nightmares That Go with It, in which he chronicles the final year in the working life of recently retired NFL executive Ernie Accorsi. Callahan's narrative is equally split between biography and the specific events of the 2006 football season, as Accorsi winds up his...

Hot and not

The Paolantonio Report: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players, Teams, Coaches, and Moments in NFL History, by Sal Paolantonio with Reuben Frank, is yet another fan item, but one designed to spur controversy and armchair debate. Paolantonio, a sportswriter and ESPN fixture for years, compiles subjective lists of the NFL's big on-the-field moments and movers and shakers, categorizing his...

What the pros know

Former star NFL running back Jerome Bettis won a Super Bowl ring following the 2005 season, then bowed out of the game after 13 years of consistent excellence with the Rams and Steelers. Bettis is probably headed for the Hall of Fame, and since retirement has tried to make a go of it in broadcasting. The Bus: My Life In and Out of a Helmet is Bettis' life story, co-authored by Gene...

Get your game on

Finally, we come to a book that may prove vital to football fans no matter which game (college or pro) is their main obsession. Stephen Linn's Fox Sports Tailgating Handbook: The Gear, the Food, the Stadiums is a handy, sturdily bound paperback catering to the needs of those who love football, but maybe love the cult of football even more. Tailgating isn't just about the game; it's about...

Big fan on campus

Austin Murphy's Saturday Rules: A Season with Trojans and Domers (and Gators and Buckeyes and Wolverines) finds the veteran Sports Illustrated writer traipsing across the country throughout last year's college football season. He offers a lively you are there diary-like account of his journeys to all the big Division I programs, featuring in-depth analysis of the various teams' fortunes,...

Team player

Only once in a long while does a sports book come along that captures the essence of the game with a combination of honesty, humanity and journalistic rigor. Tom Callahan's Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas is a stirring and lively portrait of Unitas the man and athlete, but Callahan also captures an era the NFL of the late '50s and early '60s, when the game took off as an economic...

For super fans

Super Bowl XL (that's 40 for the Roman numeral-challenged) will be played in Detroit on Feb. 5, 2006. Those of us who've been alive for all of them might be feeling our age, yet there's something about this sporting event that makes everyone feel young. The quintessential American sports extravaganza not only celebrates the nation's finest pro football teams but also has morphed into an...